Posted tagged ‘White House’

According to coverage on CNN this morning, Representative Anthony Weiner has told House leaders as well as his friends that he plans to resign his seat after coming under growing pressure from other Democrats.

After initially claiming that his Twitter account had been hacked, Weiner finally admitted that he sent the lewd picture of his…um…well…yeah…and had engaged in inappropriate relationships with a number of women he had met online.

Weiner, 46, was considered a possible front-runner to succeed New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2013 until the revelation of his online communications, including lewd photos of himself he sent to women he befriended on Facebook and Twitter.

Last year, Weiner married Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton in the White House, Senate and now in the State Department. Former President Bill Clinton officiated at the ceremony, and Abedin is pregnant with the couple’s first child.

Weiner has been in the spotlight since late May, when a lewd photograph of him became public after it was sent to a woman over the Twitter social networking service.

“Justice has been done,” the president declared as crowds formed outside the White House to celebrate, singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “We Are the Champions,” NBC News reported.

Obama said the 54-year-old bin Laden, whom he called a terrorist “responsible for the murder of thousands of American men, women and children,” was killed in Pakistan earlier in the day after a firefight in a military operation that was based on U.S. intelligence. Other U.S. officials said one of bin Laden’s sons and two of his most trusted couriers also were killed, as was an unidentified woman who was used as a human shield.

Edwards died at her Chapel Hill home, where family and friends had gathered in recent days after doctors informed her that her cancer had spread and recommended that she not undergo further treatment.

Edwards was first diagnosed with cancer in the waning days of the 2004 presidential campaign, when her husband, then-U.S. Sen. John Edwards, was the Democratic nominee for vice president. The couple didn’t disclose her illness until after the election.

The cancer went into remission after surgery and months of treatment, but it resurfaced in early 2007, as John Edwards was mounting a second run at the White House. The Edwardses agreed at the time that they wouldn’t allow the cancer to derail his candidacy.

The Obama administration said Salahi and his wife, Michaele Salahi, attended but had not been invited to the state dinner for visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and officials say they got into the event because of a breach in security.

Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show with his wife, Tareq Salahi said the aftermath of the incident has been “the most devastating thing that’s ever happened to us.”

“We’re greatly saddened by all the circumstances that have, you know, been involved and portraying my wife and I as party crashers. I can tell you, we did not party crash the White House.”

Salahi said he and his wife “are cooperating extensively with the U.S. Secret Service” in their investigation of the incident and said “the truth will soon come out.”

Tareq and Michaele Salahi – polo-playing socialites known for a bitter family feud over a Fauquier County winery and their possible roles in the forthcoming “The Real Housewives of Washington” — were seen arriving at the White House and later posted on Facebook what appeared to be photos of themselves with VIPs at the elite gathering.

“Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!” one of them wrote on their joint Facebook page at 9:08 p.m.

But a White House official said the couple was not invited to the dinner, not included on the official guest list, and were never seated at a table in the South Lawn tent.

A woman describing herself as a publicist for the Salahis denied that they were interlopers. Pressed for details, Mahogany Jones sent a statement saying simply: “The Salahis were honored to be a part of such a prestigious event ….. They both had a wonderful time.”

How could it happen? A former White House senior staffer — who more than a decade ago encountered a crasher at one of the executive mansion’s less-fancy parties — offered this theory:

A savvy pair of crashers, dressed to the nines, might arrive on foot at the Visitor’s Entrance, announce their names — then express shock and concern when the security detail at the gate failed to find them on the guest list. On a rainy night like Tuesday, with a crowd of 300-plus arriving, security might have lost track of or granted a modicum of sympathy to a pair that certainly looked like they belonged there. If their IDs didn’t send up any red flags in the screening process, they would be sent through the magnetometers and into the White House.

The extra 13,000 is part of a gradual shift in priority since Obama became president away from Iraq to Afghanistan.

The White House and the Pentagon both announced earlier this year that the number of US troops in Afghanistan was to be raised by 21,000, bringing the total at present to 62,000, with the aim of 68,000 by the end of the year.

But the Washington Post, based on conversations with Pentagon officials, said that on top of those an extra 13,000 “enablers” are also being deployed. They are mainly engineers, medical staff, intelligence officers and military police. About 3,000 of them are specialists in explosives, being sent to try to combat the growing fatality rate from roadside bombs.

The deployment of such non-combat troops is in line with the professed aim of the new US commander, General Stanley McChrystal, to try to win the hearts and minds of the Afghanistan population.

What a night it was last night! President Barack Obama’s address to Congress became more than just a speech about a piece of legislation. During the speech, the President was interrupted by a two word outburst by South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson. Because of this, the focus today has been taken off of health care, and has been put on Wilson.

But what exactly becomes of Joe Wilson’s “You Lie”? Who does it help? Who does it hurt? Should we even care?

Congress is divided and its members are angry. The president and the Democrats had let the plan be defined by its most controversial parts, some of which were distorted or mischaracterized by opponents. Conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans remain opposed to Obama’s insistence that there be a government-run health insurance option. Liberals are watching how much he’ll fight for the public option and whether Obama will hold firm in his promise to “call out” anyone who distorts his ideas going forward.

Rep. Joe Wilson is known as a mild-mannered congressman fond of making short speeches. His shortest got the most attention. “You lie!” Wilson blurted out during President Barack Obama’s health care address to a joint session Wednesday night, an outburst that made some supporters shudder even as others believed it could give Wilson a political boost in his conservative hometown.

“He’s the only one who has guts in that whole place. He’ll get re-elected in a landslide,” said John Roper, an insurance agent, as he sat among patrons at a diner near Columbia.

Still, Southern sensibilities reign in the district Wilson has represented for the past eight years. Added Roper, “He probably shouldn’t have said it in that context.”

Wilson apologized to the White House soon after the speech and again Thursday, but did not back away from the issue that prompted his outburst. “People who have come to our country and violated laws, we should not be providing full health care services,” he said.

His heckle came after Obama said extending health care to all Americans who seek it would not mean insuring illegal immigrants.